Update From Mommyland

Still here. Been reading, but haven’t found the time/energy to post or comment much.

Squeaker is an awesome girl! 14 weeks old yesterday! She’s cooing and smiling like crazy. I simply can’t describe how it feels when she smiles at me. She’s not squeaking so much anymore, so might need a new nickname.

Back at work for a little over a week now. Started back on Thursday, February 25th, but then got snowed in the next day. Last week was my first full week back. It’s hard leaving her, but I’m very comfortable with her care. She is at a beautiful new day care center in my neighborhood. It’s bright and cheerful. The staff is well trained (infant and child cpr, and the woman in charge of the infant room has a degree in early child development), and very caring. They’re always happy to see Squeaker (even though one day last week she managed to spit up on EVERYONE), and she is just at the age where she is becoming interested in all the people around her, so she is enjoying the other babies. And the big plus, all the activity is wearing her out! She is sleeping like a dream. Sometimes 6-7 hours the first stretch. After the first long stretch of sleep she doesn’t nurse for long because she falls back to sleep, so then she generally does 2 hours at a time. Usually I can get up and get myself and her stuff ready before I wake her to nurse and get her dressed. Sometimes she falls back to sleep on the walk to day care.

Oh, and right on schedule, the nighttime fussiness and clusterfeeding has abated!

Pumping at work is not so bad, but it’s time consuming. I can’t really double pump. I’m just too big to maintain proper suction easily on both sides. The one time I tried I wound up with milk dripping all over on one side. I can’t risk that at work, so I do 10-15 minutes on each side. I take my iTouch with me and watch videos (I download whatever is free on iTunes, and will occasionally purchase something).

I still have a lot of swelling in my foot from the surgery, so the commute is tough. I think the surgery worked, because I don’t have the tightness in my heel that I had before, but it’s just very tender. Started back at physical therapy last week (thank goodness it’s literally around the corner from my office, so I can go during my lunch hour), and he said the fascia feels better, but the area (particularly around the incision) is swollen.

I am loving the mommy thing! On the subway on my way to pick her up, I get excited about seeing her. Kind of like the butterflies before a hot date. Although I do wish she wouldn’t save the poopie blowouts for mommy. I keep telling her, “Poop at day care. I’m paying them a lot of money to change your diapers!”

One thing I’m finding interesting is when I explain about donor embryo and when I don’t. I am generally very open, as I really would like to see this “normalized.” Sometimes it’s a matter of time. Like when I was in a café and putting a fussy Squeaker in her snowsuit and someone said she saw the resemblance between us. We really don’t look alike, but I just smiled. Or the other morning when I dropped her off at day care and another parent commented about how blue her eyes were and asked if there were blue eyes in my family. I said that there were, which is true. On the other hand, this morning at day care another mom was telling me that she and her husband were talking about how cute Squeaker was and that they thought she looked like a cabbage patch doll. I said she was my little miracle. “Oh, you had trouble?” she asked. I told her my age, which shocked her (guess I’m not too sleep deprived!), and told her that Squeaker was the result of embryo donation, that she has a brother and sister in Canada, and had been frozen for over 4 years. The other mom smiled and said she got chills. My little family was built with so much love, there’s nothing to be secretive or ashamed of.

Here’s some recent cuteness for you all!

A big shout out the to my fellow SMCs who’ve given birth recently! It’s hard not having an extra pair of hands sometimes, but it’s sooooooo worth it. Congrats, Genkicat, Meg, Heather and Jo!